December 31, 2025

The last day of the year has a different texture than the ones before it. It carries less urgency and more weight. Less striving. More listening.

There is a quiet invitation built into this day—not to fix anything, not to promise anything, but simply to notice. It is a day to look honestly at what has passed without rushing to label it success or failure. To sit with the year as it actually was, not as we wished it had been.

As impossible as this may seem, this is not a day for making new resolutions. It’s a day for remembrance. It is simply a day for gratitude.

Gratitude, I’ve learned, is not a sentimental exercise. It is a form of truth-telling. It requires us to look clearly at our lives and say, This mattered. This shaped me. This was not wasted. Even when parts of the year felt unresolved or unfinished, gratitude allows us to see that God was still at work—often quietly, often beneath the surface, often in ways that only become visible with time.

2025 was not a year I wrapped up neatly or checked off as complete. It was a year that pressed in. A year that asked questions rather than answered them quickly. A year that refined rather than rushed.

Some things grew stronger this year—convictions that once felt tentative now feel anchored. What used to feel like ambition has slowly matured into vocation. Certain desires were clarified, others were gently released. The noise around what should be happening faded enough for me to hear what is happening.

There were moments of joy that felt grounded and earned—the kind that doesn’t need to be announced, only remembered. Moments of connection that reminded me why teaching, writing, learning, and listening still matter so deeply. Work that felt aligned rather than forced. Conversations that lingered long after they ended.

I’m grateful for rhythms that sustained me when momentum could not be found. For family moments that anchored me to what truly lasts. For friendships that carried no expectation to impress or explain—only to be present, or no presence required in some instances. I am thankful for grace that met me repeatedly, even when I was too tired to articulate what I needed. And I am thankful—genuinely thankful—for the harder spaces of this year. For the waiting that exposed my impatience. For the limitations that reminded me I am not self-sustaining. For the unanswered prayers that forced me to trust God’s timing rather than my interpretation of urgency.

As I look toward 2026, I don’t feel the urge to declare bold intentions or draw hard lines in the sand. What I feel instead is continuity. A sense that the story is already in motion and that the next year is not a restart, but a deepening.

The call that has followed me for as long as I can remember remains steady—but it feels more integrated now, less fragmented. Less frantic. More rooted. There is a growing sense that the next season is not asking me to do more, but to live more faithfully within what has already been entrusted.

I feel expectant—but not restless. Expectant that what has been planted will continue to grow, even if I don’t see it immediately. Expectant that obedience will bear fruit in ways I may never fully measure. Expectant that God will continue doing what He has always done—working patiently and redemptively through ordinary days, ordinary decisions, and ordinary faithfulness.

If 2026 brings joy, I want to receive it with humility rather than entitlement. If it brings challenge, I want to meet it with courage rather than fear. If it brings uncertainty, I want to resist the urge to rush past it in search of clarity.

Tonight, I don’t close the book on 2025 so much as I pause to thank God for the chapter—for its tone, its tension, its shaping power. For the ways it strengthened what mattered and loosened my grip on what didn’t.

This year did not give me everything I wanted. But it gave me perspective. It gave me depth. It gave me steadiness. The story is not starting over. It is continuing—quietly, faithfully, intentionally.

And that, as this year comes to a close, is more than enough reason to be grateful.